and all of a sudden what i thought two days ago was more likely a nomination to go to john kerry. don't be surpriseded now, the president basically says, fine, to senate republicans, let's have this confirmation battle. the president's main goal, of course, at the press conference was to make the case that the public fully supports his view on the deficit reduction. and that means tax hikes on the rich as part of that solution. >> i think every voter out there understood that that was an important debate. and the majority of voters greed with me. not -- by the way, more voters greed with me on this issue than voted for me. >> he's referring to that exit poll number that we showed you yesterday on taxes. now, although the president drew a line in the sand making it clear that the bush era tax rates for the top 2% will go away, he left wiggle room on how high those rates could get and how those new tax revenues will be configured, explicitly not ruling out a compromise that could leave the top tax rates lower than they were during the clinton years. >> i'm open to compromise. and i'